Preface

This manual documents the Foreign Language Interface (FLI), which provides a toolkit for the development of interfaces between Common Lisp and other programming languages, and supersedes the Foreign Function Interface (FFI).

The manual is divided into three sections: a user guide to the FLI which includes illustrative examples indicating how to use the FLI for a variety of purposes, a reference section providing complete details of the functions, macros, variables and types that make up the FLI, and a guide to the Foreign Parser.

The user guide section starts by describing the ideas behind the FLI, followed by a few simple examples presenting some of the more commonly used features of the FLI. The next chapter explains the existing type system, and includes examples showing how to define new types. This is followed by a chapter explaining the FLI implementation of pointers. The final chapter of the section examines some of the more advanced topics within the FLI.

The reference section consists of a chapter documenting the functions and macros that constitute the FLI, and a chapter documenting the FLI variables and types.